Svalbard Cruise: Polar Bear Voyages from the UK

What's a Svalbard cruise really like?

Picture the ship easing into a silent fjord near midnight, the sun still high over the peaks and an iceberg drifting past a glacier face. A bearded seal slides off a floe, and someone on the bridge picks out a cream-coloured shape on the ice. That's the Svalbard archipelago: a scatter of remote islands in the Arctic Ocean, roughly halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, where wildlife far outnumbers people and no roads link the settlements.

An expedition voyage isn't a classic cruise with ports and evening shows. The expedition team reads the weather and the sea ice each morning and picks the day's fjords, so the itinerary is a plan, not a timetable. Most days you'll go ashore for hiking on the tundra, take a kayak out among the floes where kayaking is offered, or stand on deck with binoculars watching for whales. Our guide to what an expedition cruise is explains a typical day.

Why the Arctic Explorer leads this page

Most voyages start in Longyearbyen or Oslo, and getting there is your job. Travelsphere's Arctic Explorer: Land of the Polar Bear starts at your chosen UK airport instead. You'll begin in Oslo with a tour, the Holmenkollen ski jump and the Fram Museum, home of the polar ship sailed by Nansen and Amundsen, then fly north to Longyearbyen for a night in a four-star hotel and the Svalbard Museum.

On the G Adventures Expedition Ship you'll have a main deck window cabin and a week round the archipelago, with small-boat excursions led by expert guides. A Travelsphere Holiday Director travels with the group from the UK and back, and the departure is in July, in the heart of the midnight sun.

What an organised voyage takes off your hands

The Governor of Svalbard requires anyone travelling outside the settlements to carry protection against polar bears, which in practice means a rifle and the training to use it. Guests on organised tours are exempt, because the guides carry it for them. Here's what a fully organised trip covers for you:

Check your passport first: the gov.uk Norway entry requirements say you'll need one for Svalbard. Travelling independently? Our guide to getting to Svalbard covers the routes via Oslo and Tromsø.

The ways to cruise Svalbard compared

Every operator in the table above sails into the same wilderness, but each gets you there differently. These are the facts from each operator's own page when we checked:

The HX and Titan voyages try to sail right round Spitsbergen if the ice allows, and HX is all-inclusive. The Svalbard Line takes the slow way up the Norwegian coast. Swan Hellenic sails from Reykjavik in Iceland, and some voyages pair Svalbard with Greenland on a wider Arctic cruise. Our guide to Svalbard expedition cruises compared goes ship by ship.

Will you see polar bears?

How ships look for them

Nobody can promise you a polar bear. Bears follow the sea ice, where they hunt seals, so ships spend time along the ice edge to the north and east while officers and guides scan from the bridge. When someone spots one, the ship slows and everyone quietly heads out to watch.

The rules that protect them

It's against Svalbard law to lure, chase or disturb a polar bear, and ships and Zodiacs must keep a minimum distance once one is seen, wider in spring when mothers and cubs are on the ice. The Governor of Svalbard's regulations set out the details, so bring good binoculars.

What affects your odds

Sea ice matters most. A cold year leaves ice close to the coast; a mild one pushes it north. Voyages that circle Spitsbergen or reach Nordaustlandet spend longer in bear country than shorter sailings. Our guide to Svalbard's polar bears covers where they live, and the best time to see polar bears goes month by month.

What other wildlife will you see?

Bears get the headlines, but the rest of Svalbard's wildlife is easier to find. You'll often spot walrus hauled out on the beaches, Svalbard reindeer grazing the tundra and an Arctic fox picking along the foot of a bird cliff. Puffins, guillemots and little auks fill the cliffs in early summer. Whales feed along the ice edge and in the fjords. Our Svalbard wildlife guide covers what lives where.

Zodiac landings and getting ashore

Crew help you down the gangway, take your arm as you step across and seat you on the inflatable's side tube for the short ride in. Most landings are wet, so you swing your legs over into shallow water in knee-high rubber boots, once the armed guides have checked the site for bears. If that worries you, most ships are happy for you to watch from deck or join a small-boat cruise past a glacier instead. Our page on Arctic cruises for over 60s covers what to expect if mobility is a concern.

When to sail

The season runs from late spring to early autumn, while the ice opens enough to explore the fjords. Visit Svalbard's guide to the Svalbard seasons shows when the midnight sun starts and ends.

• Early in the season: more sea ice, snow on the mountains and the bird cliffs at their noisiest.
• July: green tundra, purple saxifrage in flower and the most open water for long routes.
• August: the sun starts to dip, the light turns golden and the ice edge usually sits furthest north.

You won't see the northern lights, because it never gets dark. Our guide to the best time to visit Svalbard compares the months. Our Arctic cruise packing list covers the layers you'll want on deck.

Small ship or big ship?

Big ocean liners do call at Longyearbyen, but Svalbard's newer rules keep ships above a set passenger limit out of the national parks and nature reserves, which cover most of the wild coast. Smaller vessels are built for this landscape, with ice-strengthened hulls and few enough guests for everyone to get ashore and see the wildlife up close.

Places you might land

• Hornsund, with its glaciers and the Polish polar research station
• Bellsund and the long fjords of the west coast
• Ny-Ålesund, one of the world's northernmost settlements
• Northwest Spitsbergen National Park, with old whaling sites
• Alkefjellet, where Brünnich's guillemots crowd the cliffs
• Pyramiden, the abandoned Soviet-era mining town off Isfjorden

Treat these as possibilities, not a promise. Most voyages begin and end in Longyearbyen, worth a wander if you've a free hour.

Choosing your voyage

Start with how much you'd like to organise. If you want your departure airport in the UK and the flights, hotels and a host all sorted, the Arctic Explorer is the most complete package in the table. If you're happy to reach Oslo, Helsinki or Bergen yourself, the others open up longer routes. Once you've got a shortlist, our guide to cruising to Svalbard from the UK covers airports and timings, and the expedition cruise comparison puts the ships side by side.

Questions people ask